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From the moment I get out of bed there's something which both keeps me going through the day and frustrates me at every moment.

I can brush my teeth with an electric toothbrush, use my electric shower and drive in my car to work. There's no major technology involved here, but it beats a cold shower and using my own effort to brush my teeth. That is until my battery power runs out on my toothbrush mid-brush and my old shower starts losing power, temperature or both. Then at least I'm grateful to my boiler for making my house warm.

At work, there are so few hand-written letters, I've nearly forgotten how to write and sometimes my words are barely more than a scribble. I check my email and find it a lot easier to send a quick text to my wife as I use an interactive whiteboard in the classroom. After all, blackboards are so outdated! It's just annoying when the IT system goes down and I can't access the internet because then I have to struggle to write something down myself. And the children are often too busy with their MP3 players and IPods to be listening to lessons anyway.

Technology saves us time and energy, except when we still have to print those large documents we get through on an email and send a fax numerous times because it hasn't gone through, then follow it up with a phone call anyway.

I drive home in my car, which is a lot quicker, safer and dryer than walking. Then I can sit in front of the television and use my laptop to write Helium articles and go back on to the internet again, checking my Hotmail account regularly during the evening.

A combination of the microwave and the electric cooker (it used to be gas) provides my evening meal thanks to my wife. And after interruptions from the telephone, we're still wondering why our replacement digital camera hasn't arrived after the company lost it last year when we sent it to be repaired. I suppose we've still got a camcorder to catch those moments, as well as a mobile phone, which is a lot easier than trying to remember them.

After pauses in conversation to check the texts my wife has received, we go to bed and I have to remember to set my digital alarm clock to wake me up again in the morning.

I don't think society is controlled by technology. We only have to look at the CCTV pictures to see how natural and happy people are living a simple life, or at least that's what people tell me when they call me on my mobile phone.

Learn more about this author, Ben Hughes.
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